Starting out on your home buying journey, the first steps would be determining your price range, down payment amount, and estimated settlement charges. Lenders use different variables including income, debt-to-income ratio and credit scores in figuring out how much a potential home buyer can take out as a mortgage.

Knowing what you can afford makes your home buying journey easier.

The best time to get your preapproval is before you start looking at houses.  Preapproval helps you decide what you can afford. By having a pre-approval letter in advance, a seller can be confident in taking a buyer’s offer seriously, which is an important factor, but may become extremely  important when there are multiple offers being considered. 

The length of time to close on a home varies with the complexity of the deal and circumstances of the purchase. On the average, most homeowners can prepare to close around 30 days from the time an offer has been accepted.